Council voted on December 20 to begin a wireless water meter pilot program which would test the performance of new wireless meters that are said to improve accuracy and efficiency.
These new meters allow for extremely precise measuring of resident’s water use, allows for town employees to gather meter information from hundreds of meters away, and sends up flags when there’s a suspected leak.
“No matter what happens, we have to change our meters,” says Director of Infrastructure Services for the town, Allan Kendrick. ATCO told the town they need to go wireless, but with this meter project, the town could independently service meters– cutting out the hassle of dealing with a third party, Kendrick said.
Meter misreading in the current system tend to favour the customer, Kendrick says.
Drumheller would own the whole system, from start to finish, and any associated problems would be theirs to solve. The new system would replace the existing meter reading system, that will require modifications and upgrades to remain operational anyway.
Kendrick says they hope to change over to the new system as soon as they can, based on results from this pilot project. Infrastructure has been persuing this project for a year and a half.
This would be the third meter change in 10 years for the town.
If the project has successful results, Kendrick hopes to change out all the town’s meters within 3-5 years, with money taken from the town’s capital plan. He estimates a total to change all meter heads would be around $1 million, although it is too soon to pin an exact amount.
“I’m glad we got our foot in the door and got this pilot started, because if this is going to streamline things, it’ll be worth it,” Kendrick says. “The existing system doesn’t make any sense.”
“We know we have to change, it’s just how soon.”